Two KC Leaders
Exhibit Plenty of Good Emotional Intelligence
Kansas City Business Journal - 05.25.00
By Jim Dugan, Ph.D, Fortisan Group
"Emotional intelligence is a very popular and
savvy business term these days. I like the term
but I don't know exactly what it means,"
confessed my friend, a small e-commerce business
owner.
She looked rushed, so I tried to give her the
sound-bite responses: "Emotional intelligence is
a new way of being smart," "it is more potent
than IQ in determining job success," and "it's
extraordinary people skills." With a hint of
uncertainty in her voice, she hurried off and
quipped, " Whose got it, how can I tell how much
emotional intelligence I have, is there a test?"
Within the last few years, the term "emotional
intelligence" or EI has rapidly appeared in the
business world. More than 600 companies
including General Electric, Ford Motor, Chase
Manhattan Bank, and San Francisco Chamber of
Commerce, have integrated components of EI into
their business culture.
Psychologist Daniel Goleman, Ph.D., is one of
the leading EI spokesmen and the author of the
best-selling book Working With Emotional
Intelligence. Goleman analyzed the skills or
competencies of employees in more than 100
organizations and concluded that EI was twice as
important to business success than IQ or
technical skills. Although, IQ and technical
expertise were important they were considered
"threshold competencies." These skills help you
get the job, but it is EI that help you "climb
the corporate ladder."
A recent feature article in Fortune Magazine
described Continental Airlines' amazing
turnaround and provided a glimpse of how a
leader's strong EI skills contribute to a
compan's success. Before Gordon Bethune was
hired in 1994, Continental had declared
bankruptcy twice and had gone through 10 CEOs in
10 years. Bethune, ex-Navy Petty officer,
appears blessed with an unwavering
self-confidence, a natural empathy and uncanny
ability to tune into his employees' concerns and
frustrations.
His employees had seen so many leaders come and
go, they were skeptical about his promises and
plans. Bethune was not deterred; he met with the
pilots, baggage handlers, and ticket agents in
hundreds of formal and informal meetings. He
listened to their many complaints, showed them
he could be trusted, shared earnings, and valued
their ideas. Bethune's efforts helped generate a
new spirit of teamwork and collaboration that
lifted Continental from near extinction to a
$383 million profit in 1998.
Homegrown examples of EI
In Kansas City, there are a number of leaders in
the profit and non-profit sectors who have
exceptional EI skills.
Bill Dana, the Chairman and CEO at Central Bank
of Kansas City, is certainly one of them. He
belies the traditional banker role. He's an
astute businessman, but he's also part community
activist and with a tad of that Silicon Valley
inventiveness. He has forged new markets,
courted a new customer base and earned a tidy
profit for shareholders. In 1998, the bankıs
earnings were ranked second of 72 banks surveyed
in Kansas City. What makes Dana's achievements
all that more amazing is that Central Bank is in
an area of the city where almost half of its
residents are below the poverty line.
Keys to Bill Dana's success: trust,
relationships and recognition of diversity.
Now, if you ask Dana why he has been so
successful, like many leaders with strong EI, he
credits his employees for their hard work and
thanks his customers for their loyalty. But
Dana's employees work hard because he has
created an atmosphere where trust, teamwork and
innovation can flourish. Customer loyalty has
been earned by responding to the rich ethnic mix
in the community and by being active beyond the
walls of the bank. Central Bank has joined with
community groups to rejuvenate a drug house and
other neighborhood buildings. It offers classes
in American banking to the immigrant
communities, financial management to minority
groups and employs Spanish and Vietnamese
speaking tellers.
Leaders like Dana with extraordinary EI skills
don't reside exclusively in the corporate world.
Janet Bruce Campbell, director, of The Johnson
County Museum possesses optimism,
persuasiveness, and intuition that would be the
envy of any venture capitalist. In her tenure at
the Museum, Campbell has spun straw into gold.
When she arrived there the place was
"languishing." The museum had little space,
fewer than 15 visitors a day and a limited
assortment of artifacts. Refusing to be derailed
by these many obstacles in her path, Campbell
championed a capital campaign that generated
more than one million dollars. In 1996 more than
35,000 visitors toured the museum. In spring
1998, a renovated museum welcomed even more new
visitors to new exhibits chronicling Johnson
County's history.
What you can do
If you don't possess the extraordinary EI skills
of Bill Dana or Janet Bruce Campbell, there is
still hope. Unlike IQ, which most experts agree
is fixed by your teen years, EI may be
developed. If you want to enhance your EI, you
may want to consultant a psychologist or
professional consultant trained in EI. They will
help you complete a test of your EI skills and
map a plan for growth.
Assessing and building EI takes some courage and
involves some risk. You can discover some
surprising and painful things about yourself. I
know a psychologist/consultant quite well who
was shocked when his EI test suggested that, he
wasnıt as flexible and adaptable as he thought.
(This was good feedback for me.) Assessing and
building your EI can be fun and rewarding, both
personally and professionally.
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